Water Cooler Games - Libery City Satire

Libery City Satire
April 30, 2008 - by Ian Bogost

In case you didn't notice, Grand Theft Auto IV was released yesterday. The coverage is predictably overwhelming, although standing out among the noise about sales records and politicians is Heather Chaplin's piece on NPR's All Things Considered, which includes a series of interviews with GTAIV writer Lazlow Jones. I've criticized Rockstar before for failing to put people in front of the media to discuss their games, so this is a welcome change of pace. Jones's thesis about the game is summed up in the call-out quote near the top, "It's a satire of not only New York, but of American consumerism and culture."

Lazlow Jones is a writer, and he points out all the terrific textual and graphical materials that have always graced the storefronts, billboards, and airwaves of the series (sure to catch the NPR segment about GTA's NPR radio station parody). But playing a couple hours of GTAIV tonight, I couldn't help but wonder if the bite of the gameplay will ever catch up. As an advocate for the power of the procedural representation of social and political positions in games, I can still appreciate the clever signage and speech in the series. I have a long way to go before I'll know if GTAIV cashes out its social critique in its model of the world rather than just in the skin it puts around it, but part of me wonders why, if it does, I haven't yet felt that sensation two hours in.

Comments (2) | Post a Comment

Comment from tanner on May 1, 2008

I wouldn't say the GTA series is devoid of critique beyond the "skin" of the game. While I haven't explored IV much, I think in many ways the antagonistic environment of the series is offering a rather cogent point about the American culture of violence and police state.

I particularly liked how the middle of the map in San Andreas was occupied by a giant mountain aptly named the panopticon. That seemed to provide a textual confirmation of the gameplay elements I had already felt were communicating a tension between desire and self-regulation.

Comment from Ian Bogost on May 2, 2008

Perhaps, although the environment isn't the social model either. I think there are aspects of it in the series -- the nutrition and respect model in San Andreas, for example -- but I still remark on how relatively hidden those experiences are, compared to the remediated text and images.

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